Warsaw (Puls Biznesu) – Polish shipyards will rather not have to give back the public subsidies they have received so far. Brussels may, however, halve their capacity. How about profitability then?
Till the end of February, it will be clear whether the European Commission (EC) approves of restructuring plans of Polish shipyards, including the public subsidies they have received. The chances are big that Brussels will decide the subsidies from the state were legal.
“However, we have had signals that EC wants the shipyards to cut their capacity to 500,000 tons of CGT annually (production counted as the ratio of capacity to employment)”, Slawomir Urbaniak, the deputy Minister of the Treasure said.
This means that Polish shipyards would have to cut capacity nearly by half.
“EC stresses that we should analyze the production of the sector in the last five years, count the average and estimate the capacity reduction. We stress that Polish shipyards have had financial troubles in recent years and the period was not representative as far as the necessary production is concerned”, Slawomir Urbaniak added.
The Ministry of Economy which is responsible for the restructuring of the shipyards will negotiate with the EC the capacities till the end of February.
The shipyards have an idea how to please the EU and increase production at the same time.
“We are ready to reduce capacity for some time and not to build ships or ship parts in part of the shipyard. We would build steel constructions used at sea wind farms instead”, Arkadiusz Aszyk, the deputy CEO of Stocznia Gdynia said.